The Emory Herbarium (GEO) grows through our new collection efforts and the acquisition of orphaned or donated herbaria, and donations of plant material by independent botanical collectors. Although GEO is interested in receiving material from all continents and taxonomic families, in particular we have an interest in herbarium specimens and botanical objects linked to medicinal uses and practices. Here are some examples of botanical collections that we are interested in obtaining (photos taken by Dr. Quave at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center at Leiden University, The Netherlands):
Other examples of items that we are interested in obtaining and curating include:
- Pressed herbarium specimens
- Private botanical collections
- Historic specimens of plant resins, seeds, and other parts
- Historic botanical prints and artwork
- Historic texts, such as botanical flora, materia medica, pharmacopoeia (medical texts with plant-based medicines), old herbals, original herbaria (bound books with plants affixed to the pages)
- Historic botanical objects, such as blow guns, spears, tribal masks, assorted cultural objects, plant-based tools, musical instruments, medical instruments, and bottled botanical medicaments (prior to the 1950’s)
In addition to curating any donated items in our physical collection, we also aim to image and digitize these objects for outreach, education and research purposes. Please note that we unfortunately cannot take donations of live plants at this time.
We are also eager to accept donations to the Emory Herbarium Library. We are in need of botanical reference texts and will accept used texts in gently worn condition. We have also established an Amazon Wish List of needed texts. Donors can place an order on Amazon and the texts will be delivered to the Herbarium Library.
If you have any questions about making a material donation to the Emory Herbarium, please contact the Curator, Dr. Cassandra Quave at: cquave [at] emory [dot] edu or (404) 727-7065.